A week at the Cape

What was supposed to be a single night at the Cape Eleuthera Marina, quickly turned into two and then four and eventually five. We just can’t seem to leave – sound familiar to Chub Cay? Fortunately, this time we are only staying put due to squalls passing through and not our windlass breaking.

The marina

The first thing we notice as we pull into our slip at the marina is a very large nurse shark swimming nearby. Just a few moments later and we spot another – nice! The marina is looking to be promising. Especially since there is a dock hand there to help us tie up after normal business hours. We settle in for the night, make some dinner, and are actually able to connect to the wifi. This means that we get to watch an episode of Shark Tank – it’s the little things!

Tangent: It has been ridiculous how poor wifi is everywhere we go – even places we pay to stay at which are supposed to include wifi. Luckily we have the wifi booster, because that’s the only way we are able to actually get the wifi here at Cape Eleuthera. I’m really glad that Matt came up with his elaborate system to keep us connected – read all about the technical stuff involved (in a few days when posted – link to be added). Using cellular data definitely seems to be the way to go when cruising; again, as long as you have a booster. 

In the morning, Monster and I venture around the marina and stop by the main office to check ourselves in since we arrived late the prior evening. The marina is small, but cute and has a little market onsite. We spot a few more nurse sharks as we check out the rest of grounds which include two beaches: one of the east side “Sunrise Beach” and one of the west side “Sunset Beach.” There is also a small swimming pool and restaurant on site.

Snorkeling around the cape

We decide to stay a second night at the marina due to Matt’s work schedule; which isn’t all bad because this gives us more time to check out the nearby snorkeling. After Matt finishes up work for the day, we take out in the dinghy to try to find some of the documented sites we found online. First up, we check out Chub Rock – it looks sub-par, so we continue away from the shoreline towards what we believe to be Cathedral Reef. We eventually spot some nice looking reef below us and hop in, holding onto the dinghy painter. The current has other ideas though and I quickly tire, so we get back into the dinghy and move up current. Now we can slowly drift back down the reef – my type of snorkeling!

We have no idea if we actually found Cathedral Reef or not, but it was quite an impressive snorkeling reef, so we mark it down on our Active Captain app before heading towards the next spot. Continuing along south, we spot some more reef area so we head back into the water to check it out. It’s expansive, but not that impressive so we only stay in for a while to capture some shots of a stingray and lobster before deciding to try another spot.

We know from our previous day of diving that there are at least two moorings marking the dives sites we already visited. We really enjoyed the first dive site that we explored and know that it’s shallow enough to offer nice snorkeling as well, so we head there next. I decide to name this site “Flowerhead” based on the large, gorgeous flower shaped coral structure that sits on the front of the reef.

Today the site is even better as we spot some barracuda and two reef sharks! We spend quite a bit of time swimming around the area admiring the sharks and all of the aquarium fish. It starts getting late, though, and of course I’m getting cold so we decide to head back to our boat at the marina.

Inked by a squid

Strong winds prevent us from getting out to snorkel the next two days, but as soon as they lighten up we head back out in the dinghy, determined to find some more reef. As we are motoring down the coast, we spot something fly out of the water right in front of us! This isn’t that surprising though, as flying fish seem to be literally everywhere we go in the Bahamas. This particular fish appears to be more “pink” than the typical “blue” hue though, which is a bit odd. Just as we’re musing about it, it flies out of the water again and we immediately notice that it isn’t a fish at all, but a Caribbean reef squid! Awesome!

As it is landing back in the water after the second jump (or perhaps before it even makes it back to the water) it squirts ink at us. I say at us, because it’s only a couple feet in front of the dinghy and appears to be “running away” from us. Pretty interesting – and definitely a first! Unfortunately, we don’t get any photos as it all happens pretty fast.

More snorkeling

We take the dinghy further south along the coast in search of some new reef to explore. It pays off as we spot three mooring balls close together marking dive and/or snorkel spots. We tie up to one of them and jump in to check it out. The water is a bit too deep to really enjoy snorkeling though, and the reef doesn’t look as healthy here. There are large, impressive structures with lots of tunnels and swim throughs which would be fun if doing a regular dive. We check out the other two mooring balls and find that one of them has some pretty decent snorkeling, so we spend a few minutes kicking around the area.

The two previous days that we’ve been out in this area, we’ve spotted two different boats anchor (later we realize they are actually tied up to a mooring instead) in the same area. Google tells us that both of these boats we spotted are actually dive liveaboards – so they must know where the best sites are! Using our GPS, we navigate to the approximate spot where we’ve seen them before. Off in the distance we spot a white buoy – that must be it! Matt hops in the water to check it out (I stay warm up in the dinghy above). He immediately spots two large Maui, Maui – nice! Of course he doesn’t have the camera and this is the first time we’ve either one spotted that type of fish. Oh, well.

The dive site looks like it’s really nice, but just that – a dive site. It’s too deep to enjoy much snorkeling. We would love to have our hookah system with us, but it’s just a lot to load up and use from the dinghy. We settle for heading back to our favorite Flowerhead to enjoy a little more time in the water. It’s gorgeous as ever and there are dozens of large barracuda and needle fish hanging out near the surface. They actually start to freak me out a bit as they seem to follow us around. Next, we spot one of the reef sharks – based on markings, we’re pretty sure we saw the same one on our previous visit. There’s also a friendly ray who hangs out with us for a while.

On our way back to the marina, we spot another white buoy at a deeper area. It appears to deep to snorkel, but we mark it down on our map so that we might revisit it another time. Closer inland, we spot yet another white buoy and decide it might be worth a try. We both head into the water for a quick (and cold!) few minutes checking out this new spot. It’s very pretty, though nothing extremely noteworthy. After finishing up here, we finally head back to our boat to warm up and make some dinner. Oh yeah, and watch some more Shark Tank!

Here’s a short video compilation from our time snorkeling at the Cape!